Ubisoft's Skull & Bones Lives; Devs Take Inspiration From Fortnite
There have been reports on the web that the Skull & Bones from Ubisoft has undergone a metamorphosis into a game with a „living world”, in the vein of Fortnite, which will continue to evolve.
At the Ubisoft Forward conference there was no mention of Skull & Bones. It wasn't exactly a surprise, as there have been rumors about big problems troubling this project for a long time. Now, Video Games Chronicle reports about what is happening with the game.
The website's editors refer to close insider sources, which asked for anonymity. According to them, the developers had big problems with creating a unique identity for the game, which would distinguish the project from other open-world titles in Ubisoft's offer. Last year, a decision was made to restart the development (which coincides with other reports from a few months ago). The current incarnation of Skull & Bones is to be an online game with a "living world," in which locations, characters and tasks will change over time and in response to players' actions.
The devs are said to take inspiration from Fortnite, whose map regularly undergoes major changes. This approach is different from e.g. Tom Clancy's The Division 2, which receives add-ons and updates, but the world itself remains mostly static. With the change of concept of Skull & Bones, a lot of reshuffling also took place in the dev team. The creative director left the project (he later found a job at Wargaming) and was replaced by Elisabeth Pellen - a veteran who worked in Ubisoft for two decades.
As a reminder, Skulls & Bones was announced in 2017, and the release was initially planned for autumn 2018, but then the game was delayed several times. The last time new materials from the project were shown was two years ago at E3.
The game has been announced for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. However, we expect that the game will also be released on PS5 and Xbox Series X.
